


A Candlenights Carol

by Capripian_Light_Of_My_Derse



Category: A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Chains, Claustrophobia, Cruelty, Gen, Ghosts, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, Magic, Minor Character Death, POV Second Person, Visions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 00:56:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17294618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capripian_Light_Of_My_Derse/pseuds/Capripian_Light_Of_My_Derse
Summary: "We set the stage in Neverwinter, a snowy day, the eve of Candlenights. A frosted window, a bleak shop, an elf sitting poised in a chair at the head of the room."Taako is a ruthless businessman whose greed and envy has overcome all else, his sister dead and his life devoid of purpose. When four entire ghosts visit him, he must learn the lessons his sister took with her: The lessons of hope, and of joy.





	A Candlenights Carol

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first TAZ fic! I tried to customize the plot skeleton of A Christmas Carol to fit the characters and setting which I combined it with, but this is still primarily Dickensian so he gets credit for that. If anything I have not tagged needs to be tagged, don't hesitate to comment and inform me of that.
> 
> I hold no claim to either the Adventure Zone, which is produced by Griffin, Travis, Justin, and Clint Mcelroy, or A Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens.

        We set the stage in Neverwinter, a snowy day, the eve of Candlenights. A frosted window, a bleak shop, an elf sitting poised in a chair at the head of the room. That elf is Taako, of Taako’s Counting House, surviving his sister by a century and despising every second of it. A cook at heart, yes, but who to cook for? He may be happy-go-lucky, but what happiness can exist without his dearest sister? A thief he was, and now a thief he shall remain- of naught now but the cold, hard stones shining the color of her eyes and the scritch-scratch of death’s feathers upon the parchments scattered about his office. Legality is a wonderful thing, for Taako can take and take and take without ever losing. Without ever feeling the hole he makes in his heart, the hole which grows ever larger as he fuels his endless greed.

        Taako is a _miser,_ they say, a rude scoundrel, cruel bastard, both cutpurse and cutthroat. Many say such things, but always in a hushed breath. _Never the same since his sister passed. Worse than his dead partner. He’ll turn your hard-earned gold to stone._ Children hide behind the lamps as he shivers in but a small breeze, they ask _why he’s so cold?_ They receive hushed answers, _don’t ask, don’t get in his way, he’ll take everything you have… and more._

 

* * *

 

        Your name is Taako, and you are annoyed. Truly annoyed. Ticked off. Pissed. Furious, you could say, but then again. Anger? That was _hers_ , fire and ashes and fury. Your anger is… cold. Calculated. You call yourself an idiot wizard in youth, sure, but you are shrewd. You take note. You never mistake yourself, and neither do you mistake your employees. Employee, you should say. Singular. Magnus Burnsides, a fool if you ever did typecast one. Strong, yes. Burly enough, certainly. Attra- wait, attractive? No. No, certainly not. But nevermind his attractiveness, or lack thereof, because he has stopped writing. And that is inexcusable.

        “Magnus, darling, I must ask you, as you are my _employee_ , whom I pay to do the sums(and not very well in your case). I must ask you this very important query, since it is your fucking _job_ to do so. A question, then. Why. Aren’t. You. Writing,” you spit, loving the taste of the harsh words in your mouth, loving how you can say whatever you want, no kind candle flame to chide and no one to speak the kindnesses which smooth over your hatred. Sharp tongue, that’s what you like, a keen wit, a brutal honesty more brutal than honest.

        He cows, of course, as you knew he would. So strong, yes, exquisite musculature, but still the coward who reminded you of your sister in his spark. That spark has been doused, of course. You assured it. He writes once more, head down, _scritchscratchscritchscratchscritch…_ Oh, how you love the sound. Repetition, repetition, repetition. The pen seems to glide forever, catching on every imperfection as Burnsides does his best to count to ten. He does it eventually, you suppose.

        But then, a knock at the door. Burnsides looks up, the lazy lump that he is, and who should walk into the door but those irritatingly cheerful ladies from the- you stifle a gag here- charity association. One's blue scales dry and cracked in the winter air, and the other one with her skin what you have always thought of as the precise color of an old piece of lettuce. They even wave, the charlatans they are. Smile, as if anyone smiles anymore. You certainly don't.

        “Magnus, Magnus, my old pal!” Carey, to no one's surprise, immediately rushes over to Magnus and puts him in the friendliest of headlocks. Such folly. “Where ya been, buddy? Your boss been workin’ ya too hard lately?” he chuckles, shrugs. You could chastise, but why bother? The thief will likely steal from you if you try, and your pockets of pudding won't detract her. Oh well, a slight is the least of your concerns.

        Carey throws a wink to her wife, and the strong lady decides that she has the audacity to lean on your desk. Flexes her muscles _in your face,_ no less. “Hey. Taako. So we've been going around, collecting charity money, as ya do. We're gonna feed the poor, use some money to buy them some nice meals. The works.”

        As Killian rambles, you catch Carey sneaking around to take a silver from your desk. You stop her, of course, as the silvers are quickly transfigured into the entirely different material of glass. Carey recoils as her claws clink on the now-worthless chips. You level a glare at her, convey all of your displeasure in a single serpentine stare. She gulps.

        “And what do you have to say for yourself, Carey my sweet? Is your head not already full of empty nothings? Can you count to ten better than this buffoon? Do you think that simply because I, Taako From TV, have more than two brain cells everyone does? No. So, ladies of the ‘sweet flips’, care to explain yourselves?” You smile in the way we all do, when we seem to know a secret no one else does, the secret of how we are automatically and obviously of a higher echelon, a higher scale entirely.

         “How much can we put you down for?” Killian asks, earnest as she has ever been. She _truly_ thinks you care, doesn't she? Deep in her loving, kind, generous heart, she thinks you have a similar organ. It is such a breath of fresh air, really, to see such a naive upstart. You have been alive for 300 years, and you are not as hornswoggled by the so-called Christmas spirit.

        “Nothing.”

        You see Killian’s eyes grow sharp, hard, _angry_ , but only for a moment, only a moment. Carey smoothes it over, or tries to, because she fixes you with a smile revealing more tusk than you would care for.

        “So you wanna be anonymous? Awesome, ‘Ko,” she says, almost carelessly, unknowing that your _sister_ called you that. How _dare_ she assume _her_ place? And they practically steal from you! The audacity, of these two mostly-strangers, to speak to you like you are the closest of friends, to try to break your walls and find a heart of gold that you've turned to lead.

        You won't tell them any of that, of course. Killian might see your teeth grit, your ears twitch. But she won’t see your pain. Carey might see your fingers curl and uncurl around your desk, your foot tap-tap-tapping beneath your desk. But she won’t see you. Never truly you. A mask, perhaps, the sly mongoose. Invulnerable to poisonous words twisted against you.

        “No, Taako’s not giving _any_ money to you,” you glare, pulling back your coin bags from the sticky fingers of a master thief. Said thief is aghast, stepping back and opening her wide maw comically.

        “But Taako, the poor,” Carey says, “they need a place to live, to sleep, to survive outside of the streets. I hope that in your kindness, in your generosity, you can do it. You were poor once, weren’t you? Every copper is a treasure.”

        Earnest, painfully so. Reminds you of you, back before you destroyed the last shred of idiocy you had. “Hm. Are there perchance shelters here in Faerun?”

        Killian nods, annoyed with you already. “Of course.”

        “Any workhouses? Prisons?”

        Carey laughs, which turn to snorts, which turn to a slow, dying out series of wheezes. “More than we can account for, although I hear you specialize in accounting!”

        Magnus begins to catch the laugh, the brute. He is practically laughing at _you_. You snap your fingers, and he goes back to writing with only the slightest bit of shiver and the slightest shake of the chest. A pathetic creature, of course. Fire doused, a clerk’s life falls away. You keep your coal close to your chest, of course. Magnus must pay for it if he is to waste your resources that way.

        “Well then,” you begin, entering with what may at first seem like a reasonable proposition, “they’d better go there, or at least die to decrease the surplus population. My sister certainly did.”

        Wow.

        Okay.

        That sure got some reaction, and by reaction, you suppose a better description would be Killian slapping you clean across the face and the both of them storming out in a huff. Or perhaps you could say that she was victim to a particular fit of anger in which she committed assault against a valuable member of the community, followed by her running away with her accomplice, both of which tried to take your money. Yes, you really do love a headline which lights you up in a rose-colored limelight. Reminds you of the good old days, being in the news every week for someone else’s allegations.

        “Sir, can I get some coal up in this place? I hate to tell you this, Taako, but it’s balls-freezing cold and not all of us are as cold-blooded and resistant to temperatures as you are,” He rambles, almost sliding over the fact that he called you cold-blooded in your own office. Of course, no one can completely ignore such a thing, and he winces as he realizes his misstep, stumbling to rectify but lacking the words to do so.

        “Hm,” you muse, strolling about the room in a way you hope conveys casual arrogance and leisure. An appropriate position, you have found, for casual threat and serious japery. “Cold-blooded? You call me, your charmingly eccentric employer, _cold-blooded_ ? I am hurt. Appalled. Scandalized. I pay you, I allow you to stay in my _well-heated_ place of business all day, I even let you do my _laundry…_ ”

        “Oh yeah, I have a bag of that for you. Why is all of it purple and glittery? Now there’s glitter in my sink. It’s kinda hard for Julia and I to wash our food when they get all covered in glit-” damn, he just goes on and on, doesn’t he? You’ve decided to tune out because you don’t care. Your laundry is cleaned… adequately, you suppose. Some of the stains are still there, but gelatinous ooze is a bitch. You could dock his pay, but why bother? It’s only a couple of coppers as it is, can’t get _too_ low, can it? You snap back to attention when he starts rambling about wanting Candlenights off.

        “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You want _Candlenights_ off? That’s the biggest time of the year for good ol’ Taako’s Counting House.”

        “Taako’s Counting House? Isn’t it Taako and S-”

        “No.” You’re shutting that shit down right the fuck there. As if the shit was a door and you just closed the gods-damned thing all over again. Fantasy Brendon Urie can suck your dick. You’re done with him, thank you very and much. Your harsh glare to Marnus as he stands defenseless and pressed against his desk, standing as far away as possible from the umbrella you never noticed yourself pulling out. It sparks at the tip with a few icy crackles, blasting almost without your notice. What doesn’t go without your notice, however, is the tiny figure pushing open the door and standing at attention.

        Captain Davenport was always pretty damn stiff, wasn’t he? A relative of unknown nature, given that he was a gnome, but he tended to go by the nephew description, being a century or so younger than you. Ugh, he’s so very cheerful, isn’t he? Even now, he grins underneath the perfectly coiffed mustache. You suppose you two share the trait of careful upkeep of appearance, so that’s the one commonality.

        “Taako! It’s great to see you again, it really is! How’d you like to come to my Candlenights party? It’ll be nice! We’ll eat some roast, drink some nice vintage, and just have a good time! It feels like we haven't talked in forever!” he invites, diffusing the tension between you and Magnus. Hm. He seems more joyful than usual, even for him. Must be the so-called ‘Candlenights Spirit’, giving him a boost in energy as a reward for spending all him money on gifts for people who hardly even matter. Frivolous, the lot of it.

        “Yeah, no thanks. Candlenights is some grade A bullshit, don't you rope me into it. It's a humbug, the whole fuckin’ thing,” you rant, aware that Davenport is staring at you with a wide expression the whole while. You bet his mustache is fucking quivering.

        “A humbug, Taako? Candlenights? Why would you say such a thing?” he asks, looking almost _hurt_. He probably still believes in Santa, the ignoramus. A grown gnome, who cares about Candlenights? Disgraceful. He clings to the shreds of happiness from this holiday, as if it's some form of comfort blanket stopping him from seeing the truth of the world. Ridiculous, sentimental fool.

        “I don't need the obligation to waste my hard-earned money just to buy some ‘relatives’ or ‘friends’ things they don't need or new versions of they already have. It's ridiculous, utterly ridiculous,” you rebut, putting a hand up to your chest in a dramatic gesture designed to illustrate the perfect mixture of indignation and disdain you feel for the idea of presents. Perhaps it was… too dramatic. Ah, right, nothing is too dramatic for you.

        Davenport does not seem to think so. “Taako, it's about being kind to others. If you can't do that, maybe you shouldn't come at all.” He walks out, head hung low, but seems to remember his spirit once he gets out the door. Ah, dramatic as well. You two aren’t too dissimilar after all. Ha. Ha. Ha. You’re nothing like that bumbling fool.

        On the topic of bumbling fools, the sound of materials thumping into a bag alerts you to the fact that Burnsides thinks he is permitted to leave without notifying you to do so. You don’t turn around, preferring instead to speak from the shadows like a true antihero.

        “And where do you think you’re going?” you inquire, stock still, causing the poor oaf to drop every scrap of his already-scrappy belongings and make even more of a ruckus. He can’t do anything right, can he? Why do you even continue to _pay_ the fool?

        “My shift is over,” he says, picking his head up in a moment of stony defiance and beginning to put the papers and pens he had dropped back inside his ragged satchel.

        “It’s only 7:29, and I recall you getting off at 7:30,” you remark, offhand-seeming but with the force to pause him in his preparations. You pull out a pocket watch, one with a storied history and a very important gemstone set into the case. Taking care with every second of the opening, sliding your finger over the crystalline surface and into the seam, opening it in a second of glorious delight, to find that it was… indeed… 7:30. Hmmm.

        “You’ll come tomorrow, promptly at 7:30 like usual,” you announce, beginning to pack up your things as well. You nestle the watch carefully back into your inside pocket and reach for your signature umbrella, once the signature of someone else. As Magnus leaves, you believe he stops to wish you a merry Candlenights, and then regrets it. Of course, your teachers did always say you had an overactive imagination.

        Your exit has not even the faintest hint of joviality. It is somber in the brightly-colored way only the truly fucked-up are, grief buried underneath several layers of glitz and gleam. As your glittery carriage leaves, it contains nothing but you. It’s always been you. And now it’s _only_ you.

        You and only you arrive at your house. Looming, dooming, glooming. Glooming is a word, but you and only you consider it part of the official Taako lexicon. Nobody else. Nobody lives here but you. You step up the stairs which you and only you traverse, and walks up to the door. The door to the Abyss. It’s not truly the _Abyss_ , but hey, why not. Sure is depressing enough. Sure is empty enough. Infinity is lonely, and then again so are you.

        The door is normal, and then… it is not. The knocker, a simple mongoose in silver, seems to change, to twist and distort into the face of someone you thought you’d never see again. The face of someone who you despise- despise now, at least. Then? He was naught but a friend. Your knocker has transformed into the face of Sazed, the horrid visage of someone you let yourself trust even as much as _her_.

        Your umbrella scrapes the door’s wooden frame, and only then do you realize you have it out. You’re shaking. When you look again, umbrella still poised to attack, it is just the mongoose’s friendly familiarity. ‘Twas just a vision, you suppose. Hopefully nothing major. You open the door, with a degree of caution you feel is necessary for the supernatural event which just occurred.

        Inside, it is dark as always, although with your elven eyes it is better described as _dim_. Everything in here is older than your clerk, relics of a bygone era. Your very own relic, set safely in a pocket watch, weighs heavy upon your pocket. You lean upon your umbrella, weariness overtaking you despite your lack of need to sleep. A nice meditation will do you good, resting on your bed which you do not utilize for the purpose it should have. It was a gift, and you don’t turn down the free shit when it comes your way.

         You make your way upstairs to rest, but that knocker incident is sticking with you. You putter around the house, checking every room for… for what? Sazed? He’s dead. A monster? Some mindflayer giving you a hallucination. You scoff at the idea. Yeah, right. And yet you check every chamber anyways, peer in corners and turn on the lights despite there being no use for such illumination.

         Having satisfied your needless paranoia, you lay yourself to rest upon your bed, sitting in a cross-legged position and beginning to meditate. Dropping your consciousness into a lower state, you become unaware of anything around you. That is, at least until you hear something unexpected.

         A clanking, a creaking, a thumping, as someone goes up the stairs. You shoot up in bed, clutching the frame with white knuckles. Your heart is racing, quickly snapping you out of your foggy state of mind.

        “Who’s there?” you call out into the darkness, wishing upon wishes that your voice didn’t have the quiver that it did. Your wishes are ungranted, for the interloper has surely heard your fear. They’re laughing a sufficient amount for them to have noted your apprehension, certainly.

        “Get away, thug!” you shout, pulling yourself up until you are standing on the floor and taking up your umbrella in one hand. You hear rattles and the sound of scraping on your hardwood stairs. Surprised at this development, as any gods-fearing elf would be, for that metallic ringing means that they've got a weapon. You know you can beat them off with magic, but in a physical fight, you're toast.

You stand at the ready.

          You were not ready for what is happening currently, as an undead specter has flown itself through your wall and looms over you. They glow, this unknown person, but very dimly- more of a general translucent vibrancy, ghostly-blue in the way… in the way that reminds you of someone else, someone you knew once, with curled horns and blue skin, someone who you last saw choking to death on a poison of his own making. You wish to deny it, more than anything else you wish to deny your senses, but you are failing. It is bound, in almost every place it can be, by chains of gleaming silver, pulling it down. You cringe at your sins scarring your back.

        “Taako,” the ghost intones, and bile rises in your throat at the grating tone, deep with resonance and slippery with persuasion. “I would say it’s good to see you again,” it continues, as you take a step back, one step, two steps, three steps until you fall against the wall and press yourself up against it. “I would say that, but it would be a lie.”

        In a vain attempt to preserve your position as the assertive boss, the one who is definitely not scared shitless, you take a stand. You stand straight and tall, fixing your hat, stepping forward and preserving your dignity. You take a moment to stare this phantom in its voided eyes hidden by the constantly whorling chains. You poise yourself, and you speak.

        “Who the fuck are you?”

        The ghost laughs, big and booming and harsh, and drags a chain across your face with a sort of amused malice that you remember all too well. “In life, I was your partner. Or, oh right. Not your ‘partner’. Your ‘assistant’. Never much more than that, hm?”

        You flinch at the jab, because, well, it's true. Sazed remained an assistant his entire life, and even now you deny him his place in the company he helped you build. But this is not Sazed. You are only hallucinating.

Pointing your umbrella at the figment, you try to stay calm through your wavering timbre. “You, Sazed? No way, José. You're not even a ghost at all. Maybe I ate some bad cheese, or a rotten piece of pork, something low-class sneaking into my dish,” you propose, becoming laid-back in posture and finding an opportunity for a pun. “Ha! From the grave? More like from the _gravy_!”

         Sazed is not amused. His chains begin to rattle, to shake, to twist and twirl until they have completely enveloped you. Trapped in the spider’s web, you squirm and wriggle. The chains, solid on an ethereal canvas, constrict you in a way you have never felt before. You begin to breathe heavily, your eyes searching all about the room for something, anything, that can get you out, you need to get out, you just want to get out _, please, you're begging, just_ -

        “ **LET ME OUT**!” you scream, continuing to fight the shadow of your former friend, your neck muscles growing taught and your teeth grinding against each other. You cannot escape, no matter how you twist and turn, and whilst you try desperately to break free the cobalt mist of Sazed’s that has begun to encircle you and trap you, his leer stares through your soul as one of his horns grazes your cheek.

        When he speaks, it is in a layered tone. You hear him in all directions, coming from behind you, from the side, encircling you to further cage you within his chained prison. “Taako. I must tell you now that you are driving yourself further and further along the path towards becoming me. And I know how you despise me so, so that should frighten you.”

        You try to speak, to protest or to chastise, but a chain snakes its way around your mouth and constricts your words between its harsh and iron bite. You feel tears streaming down your cheeks, yet Sazed presses on.

        “Feel that chain? Every fucking link is another thing I did wrong when I could have been virtuous. Your chain is even longer, Taako, and it will bind you forever. You will travel and travel for the rest of your days, and never be able to rest. You will descend into the nine hells, live a different layer of the dreaded abyss every time you think you've gotten used to your torment. You will never be free if you keep acting as you do.”

        You have grown limp in his grasp, and yet the words he speaks bring nothing but more pain to you. As Sazed unwraps you from your net, you simply land on the floor and curl up into a ball, staring up at the blank eyes which look at you with such contempt.

        “Please, Sazed, I need to hear something good,” you plead, your throat tight and your voice hoarse. You never wished him to see you like this, to see you at all. But you swallow your pride, and you beg.

        Sazed pauses for a moment, ponders, and then his eyes snap open with an unearthly glow to them beyond even that of his ghostly form. He speaks.

        “I saw three shadows. I saw three shadows, chasing the unrepentant one. I saw three shadows. I saw the things that once were. I saw the things that are. I saw the things that are yet to come. I saw three shadows.”

        With that, Sazed fades away, your peril disappearing just as you open your eyes. Taking a few blinks, you hope to make the decision that it was just a bad trance. And yet- running your finger over your cheek reveals your blood, freshly running, from where his horn sliced you. That was… terrifying. You hardly even understand, what he said, though he was always unclear to you. Never straightforward, and you suppose you have developed that trait as well.

        You sit into your chair and grip the arms, sitting still a moment before slipping slowly into the lightest trance you’ve had since your sister died. So light, you could hear a pin drop. Or… a staff tapping on the window.

 

 

 

  


 

 

  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this!! Even reading it is lovely and kind, but comments and kudos fuel the author's passion, so if you'd like to see more of this please do those things! The next act SHOULD be out in a few weeks if I can do that, but that's a soft deadline.


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